Noemi Maria Tali/Noah Lafonara (ITA) brought home the first Ice Dance gold for Italy at the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final in 27 years in Grenoble (FRA) Saturday in what was a beautiful Junior Free Dance event. 

Noemi Tali/Noah Lafonara enjoy golden moment 

Italy’s Noemi Maria Tali/Noah Lafornara danced off with the first gold in the Junior Grand Prix Final for their country in 27 years. Katarina Wolfkostin/Dimitry Tsarevski (USA) earned the silver medal while Darya Grimm/Mikhail Savitskiy of Germany repeated as bronze medalists. Tali/Lafornara and Wolfkostin/Tsarevski competed in their first Junior Final. 

Tali/Lafornara continued their rise this season with a wonderful Free Dance to “Love Story”, showing off strong skating skills, precise footwork and strong lifts. 

The JGP Riga Champions collected a level four for the dance spin, the lifts and the twizzles to set a new personal best of 101.32 points and take the Junior Final crown with a total of 169.98 points. 

Noemi Maria Tali/Noah Lafornara won Italy's first Junior Ice Dance Grand Prix gold in 27 years with a personal best for their 'Love Story' Free Dance  © ISU

The only other Italian team ever to win the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final were Federica Faiella/Luciano Milo back in the very first ISU Junior Final in the 1997/98 season, before Tali/Lafornara were even born. However, both couples had the same coach in Valter Rizzo. 

“We are both very emotional I can’t even express it in words and we are super happy for what we’ve done today,” Tali said.

“We are proud of what we did and hope to do even better in the future. We worked physically and mentally for approaching the best results possible. I got a lot more nervous and that what we mainly tried to focus on. 

“Our focus was on each step, each transition, each movement, each element one by one instead of thinking about the program in general,” she continued.

“We are proud of ourselves, we worked a lot and put everything from our preparation to achieve the best results we could,” Lafonara explained.

“Coming into this competition having won both JGP events we definitely feel the pressure of wanting to continue to perform great and show that we’re improving. So pressure was present but we also worked on trying to ignore things that are not related to our skating and do our best.”

Wolfkostin/Tsarevski delivered a passionate performance to “Moulin Rouge” that included three level-four elements. The JGP Gdansk Champions scored 99.41 points for a total of 164.98 points.

Katarina Wolfkostin/Dimitry Tsarevski (USA) continue to improve, taking silver as they look ahead to the challenge of senior-level Nationals © ISU

“We went out there and did what we worked on and what we prepared on. There is always a room for improvement it’s going to be there and it’s something you can focus on and work on,” Wolfkostin commented. 

The next challenge for the American couple will come at senior-level Nationals before they go to the ISU World Junior Championships. 

“This [US Nationals] is our second competition for Senior so we have our senior programs that we made already and we are switching back,” said Wolfkostin.

“We want to keep working on our presentation since we are a new team it would be good to get our synchronicity cleaner, we are really happy with our progress.”

Grimm/Savitskiy’s captivating dance to “Adagio” was highlighted by difficult lifts and fast-paced footwork. The 2024 ISU World Junior bronze medalists earned 97.02 points which added up to 161.86 points. The German couple won their second consecutive bronze medal in their third appearance in the final.

Darya Grimm/Mikhail Savitskiy (GER) showed off fast footwork and difficult lifts as they returned to the third step of the Junior GP Final podium for the second year in a row © ISU

“I feel like we were more free today, we didn't feel as tense as maybe in past competitions,” Savitskiy shared.

“I feel like it's got a lot to do with mindset. We've been working a lot with Matteo [Zanni, coach], clearing our minds and working on the psychological aspects of figure skating competitions. And I think it worked. I thought we were engaging more with the audience and the audience was engaging with us, which helped us a lot.

“It just feels good to know that hard work pays off. And it also shows that we cemented our place as one of the leaders in juniors and I think that's a good thing to take the next step into the senior category,” he added.

Iryna Pidgaina/Artem Koval (UKR) moved up to fourth place with an emotional performance to “S.O.S d’un terrien en detresse” (152.27 points) while Celina Fradji/Jean-Hans Fourneaux (FRA) slipped to fifth at 151.70 points.  Elliana and Ethan Peal (USA) finished sixth (143.08 points). 

For full entries, results and further information visit the ISU Grand Prix Final event site.

What and when 

The schedule of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final is as follows:

Thursday, December 5: Junior Pairs, Junior Women’s Short Programs, Junior Ice Dance Rhythm Dance, Pairs & Women’s Short Programs
Friday, December 6: Junior Men’s Short Program, Junior Women’s Free Skating, Rhythm Dance, Pairs Free Skating, Men’s Short Program    
Saturday, December 7: Women’s & Junior Men’s Free Skating, Junior Free Dance, Junior Pairs Free Skating, Free Dance, Men’s Free Skating
Sunday, December 10: Exhibition Gala

How did Skaters qualify for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final? 

Skaters/Couples competed in two events and collected points towards the qualification for the Final. Check out the complete ISU Grand Prix Standings:

Women             Men     Pair Skating     Ice Dance

For further information see the General Announcement of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series. Please visit the ISU Grand Prix page for full entry lists and further information regarding the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series.

Follow the ISU Grand Prix events:

The schedules of each ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating event are available below:

• 18 - 20 Oct 2024                       Skate America in Allen, TX (USA)
• 25 - 27 Oct 2024                       Skate Canada International in Halifax (CAN)
• 01 - 03 Nov 2024                      Grand Prix de France in Angers (FRA)
• 08 - 10 Nov 2024                      NHK Trophy in Tokyo (JPN)
• 15- 17 Nov 2024                       Finlandia Trophy in Helsinki (FIN)  
• 22 - 24 Nov 2024                      Cup of China in Chongqing (CHN)

The ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final: 

• 05 - 08 Dec 2024                      Grenoble (FRA)

About ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating

The ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series started in 1995 (previously known a s the ISU Champions Series) and consists of six invitational international senior events and the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final. The top six of the past World Championships are seeded. Competitors collect points in their events towards the qualification for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final. Only the top six Skaters / Couples in each discipline can qualify for the Final.